February 2008

GEORGIA WING
EMERGENCY
SERVICES
NEWS
90-Day ES Training Schedule
The training events listed below have been scheduled in the next three months of the year. There
is additional training in the works that will be published as it is confirmed.
9 February 2008 Wing SAREX at Lawrenceville (IC is Paul Branson)
16 February 2008 Group VI SAREX at St. Simons Island (IC is Bill Wallace)
23 February 2008 Frost Bite Winter Training Activity (Tentative)
8 March 2008 Incident Commander and Command Post Staff Training, Dobbins ARB
28-29 March 2008 Georgia Wing Conference at the Augusta Marriott (Non-ES Event)

GEMA Hurricane Exercise 28-29 May

HURREX 2008 is a Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) large scale functional
exercise designed to test the ability of the Georgia State Operations Center (SOC), along with
supporting State, local, volunteer and private agencies and organizations, to effectively and
efficiently manage a statewide response to a catastrophic hurricane impact along the Georgia
coast. The exercise will be divided into two parts. The first part, the tracking and warning phase,
will be conducted May 28. The second phase, requiring personnel accountability and family
assessment, will be conducted May 29.
How will Civil Air Patrol be involved? Georgia Wing plans to send a small Incident Management
staff to assist in the SOC in Atlanta, and another small staff to work in the Aviation Support
Operations Center (ASOC) at the forward operating base, probably in or near Savannah during
this exercise. These staffs will coordinate and manage all CAP responses to the exercise. There
will also be many realistic scenarios that will be assigned to aircrews and ground teams in the
field. As the CAP exercise plan is developed over the next month or so it is quite possible that we
will include coordination with and response from our neighboring states in both South East
Region and Middle East Region. This may prove to be the biggest multi-agency exercise that
Georgia Wing has undertaken in many years!
The wing staff has already sent people to participate in several GEMA Workshops to learn, plan,
and start preparation for this exercise. We are taking that information and creating not only an
exercise plan to outline our part in this statewide exercise, but to also prepare training plans to
get our people ready for our part in this exercise. We plan to conduct several workshops,
tabletop exercises, and drills prior to the actual HURREX 2008 to ensure that we are ready. You
can expect to hear about and learn much more concerning this event in the coming months. As
events develop we will publish additional information.

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February 2008

2008 National Emergency Services Academy (NESA)

Online applications are now being accepted for the 2008 National Emergency Services Academy (NESA)
at: https://ntc.cap.af.mil/ops/nesa/. Slots will be filled on a first come first served basis through the 18th
of May 2008 or until slots are filled, whichever comes first. Members are encouraged to apply soon to get
into the course or courses they desire. Some courses fill up faster than others. Registration costs $175 per
course. Additional information on all the courses being offered at the 2008 NESA can be found at:
http://ngsar.homestead.com/home.html.
Questions should be directed to the NESA staff at NESA@capnhq.gov.

Rapid Response TEAMS being Established

It has been determined that Georgia Wing needs to develop Rapid Response Teams as outlined by
National Headquarters so we will have known, pre-identified resources available to respond quickly to
complex emergency situations. To that end the newly developed wing ground team has be designated as
the first Rapid Response Team Ground. We are currently recruiting members for an Incident
Management Rapid Response Team.
If you are serious about Search and Rescue and would like to join one of the wings Rapid
Response Teams, please contact Lt. Col. Richard Williams at rwilliams@gawg.cap.gov.

The Importance of Finance and Administration in a Mission

In many missions the financial impact of that mission may be overlooked. While the finance and
administration section in the ICS may not have a strong direct impact on the outcome of the mission,
they do have a both an indirect impact on the mission as well as a direct impact on future missions.
Following are just a few brief thoughts for everyone regarding the role of this section on CAP's ability to
successfully perform our ES missions.
Aside from the obvious, they're the ones with the money to pay for the things we need, there are other
important aspects to the finance and administration section in ICS. In Civil Air Patrol, and any other
Emergency Service organization, it is important to estimate and track the organization or mission fiscal
needs and resources. Within any organization, budgets are created in order to help plan for what
activities can occur within the constraints of the resources available.
This budget is used as guidance to acquire the resources needed to operate the mission. Then the
organization must compare their actual expenditures with the budget in order to judge not only what
resources are left to be consumed, but also their effectiveness and efficiency as well as improve the
budgeting for the following mission or fiscal year.
Most organizations have various tools to assist in this endeavor.
That being said, in the case of CAP ES missions and training, it is important to abide by these common
practices. We do have a tool to assist us too, it's WMIRS. It is important for Planning, Operations, and
Finance/Administration to work together to make sure that the information is put into WMIRS in a
timely fashion. It is also important that planned sorties, both ground and air, are additionally given to the
Finance section as early as possible for that group to be able to help the IC and served agencies in
estimating the amount of money and resources that are currently planned to be spent and therefore what
resources are left for the duration of the mission. This enables them to make the decision regarding the
appropriate deployment of the resources, to continue the mission seeking additional resources, or to
better plan for the appropriate and safe end of the mission at the appropriate time.
I hope that helps everyone have just a little better understanding of the importance of the Finance and
Administration section's role in a mission and the communication and cooperation between the sections
that is needed in order to meet our organizational objectives.
Steve Strong
Search and Rescue Officer
GA Wing, CAP
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February 2008

Wing Rapid Response TEAM

Training Conducted
The Wing Ground Team which was formed
several months ago, and recently redesignated as
the Wing Rapid Response Team Ground,
conducted another advanced training activity in
the Mountains of North East Georgia. The twoday training activity consisted of classroom
training on Saturday morning covering
standardized symbols for marking buildings
following disasters, knot tying review, lost
person search techniques, clue awareness, and
land navigation. This long morning of varied
classroom training was followed by a field
activity where each team member was given a
topographic map and a list of seven coordinates
in different coordinate systems such as UTM and
Latitude - Longitude, but some coordinates were
in degrees minutes and seconds, others in
degrees minutes and decimal minutes, and still
others in degrees and decimal degrees. This was
to ensure that they are familiar with each system
that they may encounter on multi-agency
responses. The members were required to first
convert all the coordinates to UTM format and
then plot them accurately on their maps and put
them into a GPS.

RRT Members rechecking map location at the starting point.

This navigation course started late Saturday

afternoon and was not completed until after
dark to ensure everyone was prepared to work
both during the day and at night.

ALPHA K9 Members discuss actions during the after-action debriefing.

RRT Members plotting coordinates prior to field navigation activity.

Once this was done and checked, they were

divided up into two-man teams and sent on a
long cross country navigation course to locate six
targets in the steep rugged mountainous terrain
of the Chattahoochee National Forest southeast
of Toccoa, Ga.

On Sunday the RRT hosted a visit from the

ALPHA Team - K9 Search and Rescue. Mr.
Stuart Samples and four of his team members
and their search dogs were kind enough to
participate in our training and presented a short
classroom topic on working with airscent and
trailing search dog teams. Then a detailed
mission briefing was conducted, and everyone
was divided up into four different search teams
with a dog and handler on each to look for a real
subject who was lost in the nearby forest.
During the next five hours several search
assignments were conducted and the lost
subject was located and escorted to the
command post.

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February 2008
After the exercise was completed a detailed after
action de-briefing was conducted with everyone
involved to allow a good understanding of what
had transpired during the search, the track the
lost subject actually took, and why the dogs
behaved as they did during the search. This
allowed the CAP members to understand how
they can work better with SAR dogs in the
future.

CAP Rapid Response TEAM & ALPHA K9 Team

Teams in the field.

ALPHA K9 Members work during the search.

Mr. Samples and the members of ALPHA Team

were extremely knowledgeable about SAR
operations in general, and working with dogs in
particular, and they were extremely helpful in
making this portion of the training a huge
success. The ALPHA Team appears to be one of
the best SAR dog teams in the state from what
was demonstrated. It was refreshing to see that
not only were the dogs were well trained; the dog
handlers were proficient at reading their dogs,
and also at reading a map, using a compass, and
a radio! We look forward to working with them
again in the future.

Dennis Knight & Steve Strong prepare to start the Navigation Activity.

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ALPHA K9 Members Ready to start the search.

Lt. Col. Richard Williams

Director of Emergency Services
Georgia Wing, Civil Air Patrol
H-478-929-1734
Email: es1@gawg.cap.gov

February 2008

FROSTBITE Exercise Scheduled

Continuing a long tradition, GAWG's 17th winter training event, Exercise FROSTBITE 08, will be
held from Friday, 22 FEB 08, through Sunday, 24 FEB 08.
What Is "FROSTBITE"? Exercise FROSTBITE has been an (almost) annual rite of winter for
Georgia Wing CAP ground teams since the early 1990's. Hardy groups from around the state have
converged on North Georgia's 3600 ft. Hawk Mountain (located approximately 50 NM NNE of
Atlanta) for mutual missing-aircraft ground search and cold/wet weather training. Typically, the
training consists of winter/wet weather survival, mountain land navigation, ground search,
Emergency Locator Transmitter search, multi-team coordination, and (weather permitting)
air/ground coordination. For those new to ground search, a series of field classes are held to allow
trainees to work on their basic groud team skills. Qualified skills evaluators may sign students off on
tasks they pass.
Operation FROSTBITE has traditionally been run "from the ground up" by members of the
participating units. Units provide inputs as to what type and what level of training they desire, then
they help run the exercise. Each year's exercise starts with a scenario that gets all the participants in
the "Mission" mode of thinking. Teams are given an extensive inbrief that emphasizes SAFETY!, and
then they launch on a variety of search missions. By vehicle and/or foot, they cover the areas around
Hawk, searching for "missing aircraft". These targets can be anything from scraps of colored cloth to
practice ELTs to full-fledged crash scenes with victims waiting for treatment and evacuation. Teams
are encouraged on certain sorties to coordinate with other teams and aircraft, if available.
What can teams and members expect from Exercise FROSTBITE? Much like Exercise RED FLAG,
which gives Air Force crews training in an environment that is often 'tougher' than the combat they
later experience, Exercise FROSTBITE offers the opportunity to train and exercise their skills in a
tough environment. The goal for our crews is that after a real-world CAP mission, they can come
back and say 'that wasn't nearly as difficult as FROSTBITE'!
What do you need to do to attend FROSTBITE? Contact your squadron leadership, read and heed
the Warning Order (at http://gawg.cap.gov/GA045/content/frostbite2008.html) and Operations
Order (pending), and come prepared for training and the conditions!
One change for FROSTBITE 08 from previous years is a 'No Newbies' rule -- FROSTBITE is NOT for
trainees on their first FTX. Over the years, we've had too many cases of units and individuals show
up improperly prepared for conditions, despite the heavy emphasis on training, equipment, and
clothing requirements in the Warning Order and Operations Order. The goal is to have attendees
show up with at least a basic level of knowledge of how CAP conducts FTXs. The bar is not set too
high -- any unit-level or higher field training should suffice to introduce them to field operations
prior to FROSTBITE. Contact the Project Officer, Lt Col Berry, for details or questions on this new
policy.
Overall, Exercise FROSTBITE allows ground teams the opportunity to train and demonstrate their
ability to conduct Search and Rescue operations in the harshest weather and environment, "That
Others May Live".
I'll see y'all on the mountain...
Lt Col Brian Berry, CAP
Exercise FROSTBITE Project Officer
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